Total raised to 16 million units for next fiscal year, on expectation of 10 million sales

Nintendo will double planned production of the Switch console in the next financial year, according to internal sources briefed on the company's plans.

A new report from The Wall Street Journal states that Nintendo will alter its manufacturing plans for the Switch in the fiscal year ending March 2018. The Japanese company had initially planned to make 8 million Switch units, but that has been raised to 16 million.

The change is due to better than expected demand for the hardware, which launched on March 3. According to the WSJ's sources, the company believes it can sell more than 10 million units in the next fiscal year, following a launch month in which it expects to ship 2.5 million units.

Nintendo declined to comment on the story, and the company still hasn't released any official sales figures for the Switch. However, we do have some perspective on the console's early performance, including 80,000 units sold on launch weekend in the UK, more than 330,000 units sold in Japan in the same period, and official acknowledgements from Nintendo that it is the company's fastest selling console in Europe and the Americas.